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About The Tim

Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. His background in engineering and computer / internet technology, a fondness of data-based analysis of problems, and an addiction to spreadsheets all influence his perspective on the Seattle-area real estate market.

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10 comments:

Agreed about the rental search. There is a big market opportunity for a player that wants to improve on this. No one wants to use 4 different sources, wade through crap listings, and still end up missing what they are seeking.

Would also be interesting to add a bidding component to it. If done properly it could help both renters and landlords. Renters could offer what they think the rental is worth, landlords could let the market price their rentals for them for faster lease signing.

On the Washington Post article, I see buying and accumulating rentals as being a risky move, more so the more highly leveraged you are. I think flipping makes more sense because then your risk is limited to just one or a few properties and a change in the market over shorter periods of time.

That condo investment piece fails to mention depreciation as a deduction for taxes. Odd.

Also, the biggest factor in buying a condo is the building. One where 50% of the owners bought before 2005 would probably be less risky than one where 100% of the owners bought after 2007. For the latter you’re going to have a building with mainly short sales for the foreseeable future, and those owners are going to have a harder time paying dues (and special assessments).

But I’d also add that even the bargain condos today dropping to around $100K from a $300K peak a few years ago are risky, for the reasons you stated and their chances of turning into apartments buyout [they pay you going fair market and that may not even be the $100K you paid by then] are quite high, if what happenned to Seattle condos after the late 80s Savings and Loan fiasco in the early 90s is repeat history for 2012 on.

On the Washington Post article, I see buying and accumulating rentals as being a risky move, more so the more highly leveraged you are. I think flipping makes more sense because then your risk is limited to just one or a few properties and a change in the market over shorter periods of time.

Also, if you’re going to have 15 rentals, have them in one building!

My first thought as well. A large investor corporation trying to run a very hands on widespread rental portfolio sounds like disaster. Sounds like the a way to make money getting investors, not getting rental income.

Las Vegas sounds like a safer bet than being a landlord in the sea of overly-high Seattle rents, that still are like several $100s of dollars per month below the actual purchase costs, even with the low interest rates and lower prices. My friend was a landlord and shut his mother in law apartment down to save money [its paid for too], too much evictions’ legal and destroyed unit costs for him lately….he especially hated the dogs and extra gypsy friends the tennants added in later…there was drug, crime and alcohol problems too.

Rental investment is a very hard job that requires constant management, and flexibility.

I think rents are going up to unload properties. The value of the rental is based on rental income. All land lords are joined at the hip, they all have a vested interest in keeping rents high.

In the same article they mention something like 900,000 properties available in lender inventories, that’s just today, not counting the what will be coming as people shift from owners to renters when equity positions continue to erode.

What I think is that a lot of these cash purchases will end up on the block again, and up for sale with “seller financing” offered.